Pounding The Keyboard

      I don’t know what to call it: karmic justice? what you sow, you reap? poetic justice? what goes around , comes around? Live by the sword, die by the sword thing? Or just a simple unfortunate incident caused by unhealthy eating and drinking habits. You see, there’s this man in our neighborhood, he’s in his fifties, a tricycle driver, quite harmless, always ready to help when there’s some helping needed, isn’t troublesome,—except that he’s a loudmouth. He loved to talk and engage every one in a conversation but he couldn’t speak in a normal voice. His voice was always loud and booming, you could hear it even when you’re a mile away. The people in our place had grown tired of admonishing him to turn his voice a bit down. Worse, he’s an early bird, he’d be up around five or six in the morning and would start engaging people in a conversation, or worse, in an argument, while waiting for his regular passengers, in effect waking up people   sleeping ...

           Blue screen of death is scary   because everyone who owns a computer knows it’s the harbinger of death among computers. Well, this Blue Grim Reaper  visited my computer twice today (aside from few random visits the past weeks). And whadayaknow, my computer’s still alive—barely, though. It sort of repaired itself, It had always been resilient, it had cheated death multiple times but now it freezes every now and then and had been very slow and very confused and would, at times, restart itself. It’s like an old man with an Alzheimer's and a terminal disease who’s dying but who still wants to work and serve its master.      Like an old dog dying of really old age but still wanting to bark and fend off thieves.      But it deserves to rest now—it has served me long and well.       Rest now, my faithful, hardworking servant, you can now close y...

     There’s a church near the office that I visit at least once a week. And I regularly see an old, wrinkled   lady,   begging in one of the church’s gates. She would stretch her arm while sitting in one of the concrete planters of the church near the gate, knocking at the hearts of the passersby which include me. But I  would always just ignore her. I have long stopped giving alms after I watched a TV documentary years ago that confirmed that most beggars were controlled by a syndicate, which kidnapped babies and children to serve as props for their (nefarious) begging activities. By giving alms, the TV program said, you’re encouraging these people to steal more babies from the hospitals, kidnap kids from the streets and abuse old people. You see those women, carrying a baby, knocking at cars stuck in traffic? Those weren’t really their babies, most likely. Before, I would hand out alms (just loose change in my pocket) to any beggars I saw. ...

           A few hours ago, I was staring at the rain from my window—which, seemingly, wasn’t just comprised of cats and dogs, but included some mice as I saw two scampering across the street, which probably explained the recent outbreak of leptospirosis —wondering, as earlier news of flooded streets lingered in my mind, if I should leave or just stay at home.  A few coughs and the feeling of sticky phlegm in my throat made the decision for me, which was to just stay at home. I went back to bed while softly singing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head."      Rain gets special and lovelier when you're in bed.

“Arnold Layne Had a strange hobby Collecting clothes Moonshine washing line They suit him fine…”                       “Arnold Layne,” Pink Floyd       I saw a lot of posts about Pride Parade in my News Feed these past few days, and it reminded me of how a few editors (this was when I was writing for komiks two centuries ago) asked me to have a few pen names so I could submit more stories to them (a writer was allowed only limited number of stories per issue of komiks ). Choosing a pen name or even choosing a name for my characters had always been my weakness so I decided to just look at existing names and saw a Pink Floyd song entitled “Arnold Layne.” The name seemed smart and scholarly so I decided   to use it.       I only stopped using it when I discovered the story behind the song: it was written (and san...